Rancher's Deadly Risk (3 page)

She looked at Linc and noted the way those startling blue eyes of his met hers then swiftly looked away.

“I have the students’ names,” she said quickly, passing her list to Les.

He took it almost as if it might bite him, then muttered a word no teacher was allowed to use within the school. “Ben Hastings,” he said. “Damn, why did it have to be Ben?”

“He never struck me as the bullying type,” Linc remarked.

Cassie started to bristle. “I didn’t make up the names.”

Linc glanced her way again. “I didn’t say you did. I’m just surprised. As high a profile as he has because of his basketball skills, I would have thought that if he were a bully we’d have known long ago. That’s all I meant.”

Cassie caught herself, realizing that she was taking everything too personally. She’d been upset about James all afternoon, and if she were honest, she suspected some of that had to do with some bullying she had endured when she’d been a plump adolescent. Boys and even some girls had picked on her weight mercilessly.

“As far as I know,” Les said, “the worst cases of bullying we’ve had in the district have been in the elementary and middle schools. A few fights, name-calling, some blows. But it seems to get better by this age. Or at least less extreme.”

“Things have changed,” Linc remarked. “We got a lot of new people in town when the semiconductor plant opened, and even after the layoffs there are still a lot of students who didn’t grow up around here. That creates a different kind of tension.”

Les lifted a brow. “In what way?”

“Outsiders versus insiders. It used to be most of these incidents could be worked out between families who had a stake in keeping things friendly. It’s not like that anymore, and new kids make obvious targets. James Carney is a new kid, for one thing, despite the fact he was born here. The family just moved back after years away. He’s also a serious student, he’s small and he isn’t involved in sports. Very much an outsider. He makes easy pickings for a pack.”

“So what are you saying?”

Linc leaned forward. “I’m saying we have to nip this in the bud. We can’t allow serious bullying to go unchallenged or we’ll have more of it. I get why you’re reluctant to suspend these students. Hell, it’ll probably just make the whole thing worse for James Carney, and maybe even for Ms. Greaves here.”

“Cassie,” she said automatically, as she waited to hear where he was taking this.

“Cassie,” he repeated with barely a glance in her direction. “Look, Les, we have a different dynamic now from anything we’re used to around here. We’ve got new kids, new ones who don’t have to go home at night and help in the family ranch or business. Kids who are, relatively speaking, on easy street. They get fancy electronics, most have newer cars, and if they take jobs it’s for pin money. What makes you think that isn’t going to breed resentment?”

Les’s frown had deepened and Cassie felt her stomach turn over. Under no circumstances did she want to see another incident like she had today. The memory still sickened her, the sight of James cowering and those boys spitting on him.

“I’ve been watching the changes take hold,” Linc continued. “A lot of the new kids are going to go to college. They’re not going to stay here. The other students know it. Outsiders just passing through. We’ve been having more and more instances of division, separate groups forming, and some name-calling. Why the hell else do you think I have a zero-tolerance policy on bullying for my football players? I never used to need one, but I’ve made it clear over the last couple of years that one instance of bullying is enough to get a player thrown off the team.”

“You’re not proposing we suspend all these students!”

“Not yet,” Linc said quietly, sitting back. “But your idea of starting an antibullying program is a good one. We’ve got to educate before this gets out of hand. And it will get out of hand. The bullying won’t just be going in one direction, either. The factions have been forming. We can’t let the divisions get any deeper or uglier.”

As she listened, Cassie got an inkling of why Linc was so well-liked and respected by students and faculty alike. He seemed to truly have his finger on the pulse of this school.

“How do you know all this?” she asked.

“I pay attention. My students talk to me.” He gave her the briefest of smiles. “I’ve been around a while, too. It’s easier for me to see what’s happening than it would be for you, or even for Les. He doesn’t have as much student interaction as I do.”

“So we start a program?” she asked.

“Definitely. As for what happened today, I’m concerned. It’s one thing when you see this among third graders or even seventh graders. But these students are on the cusp of adulthood. In the spring or in another year they’re going to walk out of here men. They should be past this by now. Sure, they might have little shoving matches, or call a name or two when they get annoyed, but this kind of ganging-up should be well behind them. We’re going to have to tread carefully so we don’t make things worse.”

Cassie spoke. “So you agree with the way Les wants to handle it?”

“We have to do
something
. From the minute you walked in on it, from the instant they ignored your authority as a teacher, we haven’t had a choice. There has to be a statement made, punishment doled out. We can’t let anyone think they can get away with any of that. But I’d really like it if we could find a way that wouldn’t cause more grief for James Carney.”

“He didn’t do anything,” Cassie said. “He wouldn’t even talk to me. In fact, he said I was making it worse. If they want to be mad at someone, it should be me.”

Les spoke. “We can make the detentions about the way they treated Ms. Greaves and nothing else.”

Linc looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time, and she felt an electric shock all the way to her toes. “How
did
they treat you exactly?”

“Well, it wasn’t just that they wouldn’t come with me to the principal’s office. When they passed me to get out the door, they made sure to bump into me, and it wasn’t exactly just brushing by.”

Linc’s dark brows lifted. “That’s definitely not good.”

Les slapped his hand on the desk. “We can’t let that pass under any circumstances. We’ll have anarchy.”

“But this isn’t about me,” Cassie protested.

“It is now,” Linc answered. “You just got bullied, too.” He sighed. “Okay, this is how I see it. Leaving out the gruesome details for now, put the bullies on detention for ignoring Ms. Greaves—Cassie. Make it about ignoring a teacher’s direction. We’ll get to the rest of it as we go, but for now let’s take the spotlight off James Carney. Maybe they’ll duck and leave him alone since he won’t be the source of their headache for the time being.”

Cassie turned the incident around in her mind, remembering the way those students had bumped her shoulder on their way out. It had been a little more than disrespectful. Almost like a hinted threat. Linc was right,
she
had been bullied, too. A little flicker of anger started burning in the pit of her stomach.

“I don’t want to make Cassie an inadvertent target,” Les said.

Cassie shifted in her chair. “Look, Les, we can’t let this go. What do you think those students will do to me, anyway? They can get as mad as they want. Surely you aren’t suggesting they’d physically hurt me.”

Les looked shocked. “No, of course not. You’re a
teacher
.”

Cassie didn’t think that was much protection, but on the other hand she figured these students wouldn’t want the veritable hell that would come their way if they treated her the way they had treated James.

Linc spoke. “Just make it clear to them that it’s unacceptable to ignore a teacher, and then add something about how touching her, so much as
touching,
however briefly, is a crime called battery. I don’t think any of them is stupid enough to ignore that.”

“I agree,” said Cassie. “Let’s get this program going, give the students detention for ignoring me, call their parents about their behavior and see how much help you’ll get. Keeping the spotlight off James is the best thing to do. I don’t want them turning on him any more than they already have. He’s the one in most need of protection.”

“Okay then.” Linc rose from his chair, an almost iconic figure in old jeans, cowboy boots and a faded chambray shirt. “I’ve got to get to the locker room again before the team wonders if I fell off the edge of the planet. We have an away game tonight.” Then he turned his attention to Cassie. “Are you okay with this? Really?”

“Being the center of the storm? Of course. Those bullies don’t frighten me, they make me mad.”

One corner of his mouth ticked up in a smile. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow morning and we’ll set up some meeting time to get this ball rolling.”

He strode out, and Cassie’s gaze followed him helplessly. Wow, she thought, he was going to call her. Maybe she didn’t stink as bad as she sometimes thought. Les called her attention back.

“If you’re okay with this, then that’s how we’ll handle the matter for right now. But not for too long. I don’t want those students to think they’re going to get away with bullying anybody.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Finally feeling satisfied with the direction they were taking, she said goodbye to Les, picked up her book bag and headed out for the weekend.

The day was still glorious, although twilight wasn’t far away. Winter nights came a lot earlier up here than she was used to.

But instead of thinking about the glorious weather or the relaxing weekend ahead, she was thinking about Linc Blair again. Dang, he almost acted like it hurt to even look at her. Had she turned ugly since yesterday?

Shaking her head, she tried to think of other things. Despite her reaction in the principal’s office, she wasn’t entirely easy about transferring the bullies’ anger toward her.

She had taught in a school where a teacher had been attacked by a student, and she didn’t labor under any delusions that her status protected her. On the other hand, bullies were usually cowards at heart.

It would be okay, she assured herself.

But it would be even nicer to know why Linc seemed so determined to keep such an obvious distance. He didn’t even make the normal friendly overtures to her, like the other teachers.

No, it was as if he, or she, were surrounded by some kind of repulsion field.
Keep away
seemed to bristle all over him.

It probably hurt more than it should have because of her bad experiences in the past. Guys seemed attracted to her just long enough to find out if she was willing to jump in the sack with them, and then either way they made a fast exit. It was, one of her friends admitted, weird. But the same friend had reminded her that dating was a series of “noes” followed by one “yes,” eventually.

But never before had she met a guy who seemed to see poison every time his gaze scraped over her and then headed elsewhere.

Not that it mattered, she reminded herself. He was just another guy, albeit one who got her hormones racing every time she looked at him. But just another guy.

And maybe the problem wasn’t her at all. After all, he had said he would call her tomorrow about the bullying program.

No, maybe it wasn’t her at all.

With that hopeful thought in mind, she hurried home to start dinner and get to the homework papers she needed to check. With any luck, all she’d have left to do by tomorrow was some lesson planning.

The thought brightened her mood a bit, easing the memory of the way James Carney had been cowering.

They were going to help him, and other bullied students. Wasn’t that all that really mattered?

Chapter 2

L
inc headed home after the game. It was late because the next high school was so far away, a major problem for running athletics in this part of the country. Ordinarily they avoided night games because of the travel time involved, but this week had been different because the other high school had some construction work going on over the weekend.

They’d gotten their usual shellacking at the other school’s hands, though. Nothing different there. Busby somehow always managed to field a stellar team.

But, as he kept telling his players, winning wasn’t the point. Playing the game was. As long as they loved to play, the rest didn’t matter. Sometimes he wondered if they believed him. Regardless, he always had plenty of students turn up for spring tryouts.

But after he shepherded them off the buses and toward their waiting parents, making sure everyone got a ride home, he still had a forty-five-minute drive of his own to his ranch, and some animals waiting for him.

The sheep and goats were okay in their fenced meadows, watched by the dogs, who were probably wondering by now when they’d see their next bowl of kibble. He had a couple of horses in a corral he never left out overnight, but always safely stalled in the barn. It wouldn’t take him long, but he was beginning to feel weary. He started his days at five in the morning, taking care of livestock, and finished at one-thirty in the morning...well, he was getting damn tired.

As the noise of the game and the racket from the players on the team bus began to fade from his immediate memory, along with a running analysis of how the team could improve, Cassie Greaves popped up before his eyes.

Damn, that woman was stunning. Not in a movie-star sort of way, but more like a...a what? Earth mother? She was full-figured enough to qualify, he supposed, though he wouldn’t classify her as heavy. No, she was luxuriously built, exactly the kind of female form that had always appealed to him. With bobbed honey-blond hair and witchy green eyes, she was a looker. Every time he glanced at her, he felt swamped by desire. Amazing, almost like he was in high school himself.

But he’d lived his entire life in this county, and he knew how many people came here, thinking they’d found something wonderful, and then after one winter packed up and left because of the cold, the isolation, the lack of excitement. Hell, even people who grew up here left so why wouldn’t people who didn’t have any roots?